


you're the shit and i'm knee deep in it

by vinemaple



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:58:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22037443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinemaple/pseuds/vinemaple
Summary: Nolan’s words are “Head’s up, dude!” and when they’re coming out of Travis Konecny’s mouth in real time he’s too busy failing to dodge an object to consider the implication.Or, just your classic soulmates au.
Relationships: Nolan Patrick/Jonathan Toews, Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 59
Kudos: 627





	you're the shit and i'm knee deep in it

**Author's Note:**

> title from "my backwards walk" by frightened rabbit

The first time Nolan is put on the ice he cries until his mom comes over and guides him to the edge of the pond. Like a fussy prince abdicating his throne, Nolan won’t put on skates for another year. But much to his father’s dismay, he cries then too.

“Dogs can’t swim until the water reaches their ears,” his grandfather used to say in Ukrainian. Nolan first hears the expression when he’s five, sitting on the porch and watching his sister glide around the lake. Her skates carve into the ice, _crk crk crk._ His grandfather comes up behind him, coffee mug rolling steam through the air. A large hand rests on Nolan’s head. 

“Soback,” Nolan repeats, the word for dog.

_ “_So_bak,” _ his grandfather corrects, forming the sound deep in his throat. Points to their lab barking on the shore, “Sobak.”

Their family used to be called something different. “Patrebka” was easier to say a few generations back when the muscles in the mouth could still remember how to inflect. He recalls an uncle at the barbecue last summer saying, “We had to be more Scots-Irish, we had to change our name because no one would give us jobs, but we never complained about it. People nowadays are so averse to hard work.” His mom promptly moved the beer cooler a little farther away and shot his father a look. 

Madison had scowled in the lawn chair next to Nolan, blowing into her empty bottle like a flute. “Yeah, sure Daryl. You work your ass off spending your trust fund, huh.”

“All that golf and his backswing still fucking blows.” Nolan muttered, swirling the last of his beer that’s mostly foam. 

His grandparents grew up in the same small town in Manitoba where their parents still spoke to them in florid bouts of Ukrainian and the snow had the power to stop the world from spinning. They never had to guess who would say the words on their skin because since the beginning they knew each other.

Nolan won’t understand what his grandfather means about the dog until much later, when he’s standing next to all the other boys in their Winnipeg suburb registering for midget. The air they pumped into the rink was chilled and Nolan left his jacket in the car. 

“Go and try your best,” his dad said in between shaking hands with other men, nudging him down the locker room hallway, not ungently but very much without compromise. “Just have fun.”

When all the other boys start moving, Nolan doesn’t want to be left behind. The water is up to his ears, so he skates and turns out he’s good at it. Good at near drowning. 

The narrative might begin there or at some other abstract point from childhood, but being good at hockey follows Nolan like a specter (an archive, a family history, a convenient way to develop into a person everyone will like). Along the way, he begins to love it. But it’s the way you love your body for breathing, you don’t thank it you only ask for more.

  
  


They must have some strands of soul connection because Nolan feels them sometimes like a guitar string being plucked in another room. Barely there. But they’re not soul bonded, Nolan reminds himself as he lies supine on the dock, sunburn hot and shriveled like overcooked chicken in the afternoon heat. 

Toews already has his mate, for better or worse. It was the most publicized bond in media when the Hawks made their first cup run. _ They got Toews and Kane out for the opening draw, so dangerous together. This is the start of something special, hoo boy. A dynasty in the making for the Chicago Blackhawks, _ they said. 

And yeah, they were right.

Nolan slings an arm over his face, shielding his eyes from the sun. The planks of wood are warm on his back almost to the point of discomfort. 

Toews pulls himself up by Nolan’s head, dripping water on his shoulder. He lays down so they’re side by side, sun inching behind the tree line but not dusk yet. 

The ligaments in Nolan’s legs start to go stiff from the skating drills, especially around the knee, the blood moving lethargically through his body after so much work. Geese fly overhead and Nolan tries to imagine how far up they are by sound alone.

He’s trying to count them when there’s a tap on his leg. “C’mon. I’ll make us something.” 

And Nolan doesn’t watch Toews wring water from each leg of his boxers so his ass is pulled into stark relief...he doesn’t, but he’s thinking about it as he stands up and groans through the pain in his legs. Toews’ laugh floats back to him on the breeze. 

They bake some trout and Nolan’s cuticles sting with lemon juice. Like a real MVP he passes out on the couch.

This is how summer passes them by. 

Time drips like coffee through a percolator: the same routine every day until he doesn’t need to set an alarm, it just becomes enmeshed in his brain and muscles, in the mucus trickling through the back of his throat, in the visions under his eyelids when he falls asleep. 

It’s overwhelming. Nothing they do is new to him, is the funny thing. He’s always swam in lakes and worked out rigorously, but now he’s drafted to a legitimate NHL team and is practicing with bonafid NHLers. There’s skating drills that he’s forever a step behind on. He could say it’s the hernia but Nolan’s never been the best skater. His botched legs leave him two feet behind, which means he’s stuck staring at Eakin’s ass the entire time. 

They skate him so hard that his body feels unfit for land. It’s an evolutionary misdemeanor, Nolan thinks, to make him breathe like this. So hard his lungs become wet tissue paper. He wonders if the other guys are in this much pain, but he doesn’t want them to think he can’t hang. Maybe that’s what hockey is anyway and maybe they’re all promising to ignore the pain in themselves if they pretend not to see it in each other. 

In the WHL playoffs last year Nolan could barely walk after games. Skating left him hunched over as he tried to accommodate the Richter scale of pain reverberating up his abdomen. They needed him out there more than they worried about how he got from the locker room to the bus, and he didn’t blame them. They needed him to lead. He needed _ that Nolan _, too. So climbing the stairs onto the bus hurt, but not as badly as sitting out and watching the team play without him.

He barely thinks about the Wheat Kings. Feels slightly guilty that he doesn’t feel guilty, really. Not like he played much this season anyways.

Nolan hasn’t checked his phone once since coming here, even if the guys back home are gonna be on his ass for deets. When he told them where he’d be spending the majority of his summer, they’d balked. _ Jonathan fucking Toews, Patso, are you fucking kidding me? You fucking smokeshow. Look at you, bud. This is like--Jesus Christ. This is the show for real. _

That first day in August Toews told Nolan to call him “Tazer” but that was out of the question. It always came out so stilted in Nolan’s mouth, infused with all the hours of Toews’ footage he’d watched growing up, first from Bantam then in juniors. He absolutely could not. So he stuck with Johnny, not too formal, not too familiar.

Over the past few weeks they trained together and nothing happened but Nolan was so keyed up the whole time. Like he’d never blown a load in his whole entire life and was just backed up with his entire sack’s content, blushing and sensitive to every current of air and change of temperature. 

Toews never said anything about it to make it awkward, just got through the workouts, made their dinners and sat on the couch always a few feet away so nothing could be misinterpreted. It would take too much of Nolan’s courage to cross that three feet span, anyways. Maybe if it were only two feet, but that last foot seemed purposefully placed there, cause of course he knew. 

Nolan had his family’s cabin to stay at but after dinner he’d more often than not end up falling asleep on the couch, reeking of Icy Hot. 

It quickly became a bad habit and continued until Toews woke him one night with a hand on Nolan’s head, cocked at an awkward angle on the armrest, asking if he wanted to sleep in the guest bed instead of driving back. He sorta whispered it even though Eakin had already left and no one else was around. The gesture was weirdly parental and, okay, Nolan really didn’t want to admit how much that did it for him. What a revelation to have about your childhood idol. 

But Toews already had a bondmate and sooner or later Nolan’s would show up and say the words etched into his collarbone, so it’d be better if he just put this crush to bed once and for all.

On his last night they grill some pike Nolan caught and the boys knock back beers too fast for their metabolism to process. Out of everything that summer, this is what’s most familiar. It doesn’t matter that they’re not teenagers anymore, the sound of their voices cajoling together is the same in every locker room from here to Kelowna. 

Technically, Nolan goes back to his parents’ house in Winnipeg. But cosmically speaking, his mind is floating in the ether, absorbing all the vibrations and electromagnetic energies that comprise the memory where he’s lying on the carpet in Jonathan Toews’ cabin, brain so clouded with THC that when Johnny talks about the human conscious, Nolan nods and says _ Yeah, for sure _ and is only half lying. Johnny’s like hockey yoda. But Nolan’s pretty positive Luke never wanted to bone the little green man.

In the meantime, he goes to his physical therapy appointments and does pool exercises methodically. The older ladies at the swim center are kind and find excuses to touch his cheeks. 

When his alarm goes off in the mornings, Nolan groggily bows down to stretch on the carpet in his underwear, ignoring the all-star jerseys and trophies mounted to the walls, willing his soft tissue to knit itself back together with a desperation akin to prayer. 

With precious else to do he ignores his ex-girlfriend’s texts, scrolls through instagram, and watches too much _ Duck Dynasty _while Madison and Aimee rotate through the house in a carousel of social engagements. 

After a day of fishing on the lake, he lights up the last of his shitty weed (that his buddy’s cousin said “would get the job done”) and checks the calendar on his phone to make sure he’s got at least thirty days to flush it out. The dates for training camp are highlighted and immediately stir all the anxiety that settled to the bottom of his stomach over the course of the day. 

Nolan tosses his phone farther up the shore. It’s gonna be a bitch to find in the dark. 

Falling back into the sand, he takes the biggest hit of his life and holds onto it until he coughs, then tries hopelessly to align his heart with the drawn-out croaking of frogs.

  
  


When Nolan played for the Wheat Kings he worked his way through school curriculum on roadies at the back of a bus that smelled like feet and fruit gummies. Thread the needle between workouts and practice to cram for English, Calculus, and History; just biding his time until draft day. The teachers in Brandon knew who the players were and when they got excused from class on game days it wasn’t uncommon to get a pat on the back. 

Fortunately for his teachers, his bitch of a body decided to shit the bed senior year, so he learned an additional phrase in French and actually passed all his history exams. It also meant he was forced into advanced biology. They did a circuit about soulbonds that sent Nolan down a reddit rabbit hole.

From the little scientists actually know about soulbonds, Nolan doesn’t trust them. Doesn’t trust that someone whose genetic material makes them perfect for Nolan could suddenly just show up in his life and irrevocably change it. Maybe he can’t stand that someone’s out there with his words on their body and Nolan just has to let it happen, never knowing what words will seal his fate to someone else’s. 

But here’s the thing that Nolan just doesn’t get. Darwin’s theory of evolution doesn’t account for people who never find their bondmate, or soul mates who can’t stand each other. If all people are meant to have a bondmate to propagate the species or whatever, how do you explain the people who die before they meet or get stuck with an eighty year old? Nolan’s seen the message boards online. They’re like Craigslist missed connections, but worse. People so depressed that their longing clings to Nolan in a shroud of light pouring from his phone as he reads post after post in his billet bedroom, unable to sleep.

  
  


Nolan’s words are “Head’s up, dude!” and when they’re coming out of Travis Konecny’s mouth in real time he’s too busy failing to dodge an object to consider the implication.

“Sorry about that, bro, didn’t see you.” Konecny says, leaning over to pick up the roll of tape.

“Cause I’m so hard to miss, right?” Nolan slings back, jaw smarting. 

Konecny fumbles the tape, says _ whut _ once very slowly. 

Nolan’s brain catches up and automatically he rubs the words imprinted under the collar of his sweatshirt. _ Head’s up, dude. _

Though whenever Nolan pictured someone saying it he never thought it’d be a teammate, much less on the first day of training camp. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me, here.” Pushing hair back from his face, “Seriously.”

“What, you too? Thank fuck.” Konecny is yanking down his waistband where the words _ Cause I’m so hard to miss, right? _appear just above his left ass cheek. 

“Oh yeah, what a relief.” Nolan can’t look at Konecny, face burning. 

It’s too much for him to process right now on the first day of camp, so he makes the split-second decision to compartmentalize the hell out of everything and bury that shit deep down inside. Like, _ deep _ down.

In a fugue state, Nolan walks to his stall. But the dude keeps looking at him. Keeps trying to talk to him. 

“So, like buddy. What’s going on. How’re ya? I mean…” Nolan scowls at the zipper on his gear bag. “My name’s Travis. TK.” 

_ Laces, one, two. Tape, garters. Stick tape. Skate one, skate two. _

He doesn’t look up, “Nolan.”

“Yeah no shit, bud. They gave you your own nameplate and everything. I had to dress out in the middle of the locker room when I first got here. Guess it’s different for a second overall, eh. Congrats, by the way.” Travis raps him on the arm with the back of his hand, like they’re friends or something. Like he does it all the time. “You’re Provy’s boy from the Dub, right?--eh Provy! This your boy?” 

Nolan quickly understands this trend of Travis opening his mouth and words coming out. Oftentimes, faster than Nolan can translate the sounds into meaning. 

At first he considers it a downside, but when the upside is saucers for days, right on the tape and ripped right under the crossbar with a soft _tink!_, Nolan decides he can handle a little chatter. 

  
  


Everyone said playing in the NHL would be an adjustment. It’s not like junior where you can coast through the neutral zone and still pick up two points by the end of the night. After surgery and about nine months of rehab, Nolan knew it would be especially hard. 

The reality hits him at his first preseason game when he’s dry heaving in between shifts on the bench and no one even spares him a glance. There’s no pity for his plight, only eighty-two games in a season and they’re not even at one. G just pats his helmet and grabs the water bottle next to Nolan’s ear, yelling at the ref in his clipped accent.

And then there’s Travis who skates like it takes no effort at all. He watches TK pick off passes in the neutral zone and zip down for breakaways like it’s nothing, like God himself placed the puck on the tape and said in his Mufasa voice, _ Go, my son. And score. _ Meanwhile, Nolan is stuck in scrums along the boards, getting outmuscled by guys who’ve been in the league longer than he’s been alive. 

He tries to be patient but mediocrity is chafing his ego. 

It’s an off-day and they’re doing circuits in the weight room. Ropes, box jumps, wind sprints. After his fifth set, Nolan lies down on the mat, soaking wet and nauseous. Travis stands over him looking like that Batman motherfucker with a VO2 mask on. Somehow, he’s still talking. Nolan wishes it had a gag.

“Don’t know what you’re saying with that thing on, bro.”

Travis sits down, unclipping the mask. He’s barely out of breath even with the mask and for that Nolan hates him.

_ Hey, Murray. Use your glove hand, I heard that helps-- _ Hornqvist cross checks Teeks out of the crease. _ You don’t have enough ass to ride my dick _ and _ the bench, Horny. Take a fucking seat. _

Someone on the Pens tells him to shut the fuck up and if Teeks wasn’t on absolute fire right now, Nolan would agree. 

After games they crawl back into their apartment building, play Xbox, get take out, fall asleep on each other’s couches. 

As for the bond, Nolan feels nothing. Aside from the occasional twinge when Teeks is checked particularly hard or takes a puck to the bone, Nolan lets the connection between them drift in silence like a line you have no intention of reeling in.

  
  


Before Jake invited him to dinner, Nolan was gonna play Xbox for a religious three hours and then pass out, but he figures this is of equal value considering his abs already hurt from containing the brunt of repressed laughter. Like how eating celery is supposed to burn calories, being at Jake’s serves the same purpose. 

G and Simmer show up and somehow Nolan feels like it’s an ambush. 

Jake’s burning dinner, schnitzel and something Czech that Nolan can’t pronounce and keeps flipping a towel over his shoulder for the dramatics of it all because Nolan doesn’t see him actually use it once, other than to wipe wine from his mouth. 

Nolan is staring as Jake tries to flip the schnitzel and G is staring at Nolan. 

So far Nolan’s ignoring it, but he feels a reckoning coming. Especially when G plants his elbows on the table, hands resting against his mouth like he does in the locker room before games. Simmer is icing his knee on a chair in the kitchen (_ No, not on my fucking carpet, are you kidding. Get on the tile. Go on the tile, use a fucking towel, man. _), and although he’s sipping a beer and playing solitare on his phone, Nolan knows he’s in on this too. Whatever they’re here to talk to him about.

Jake’s turning on the stove fans, waving at the smoke curling off the oiled pans. “This is why I don’t fucking do this. Like, it’s too much, I never...Jesus Christ,” he flips the towel over his other shoulder, looking for all the world like a harassed mother rather than a bachelor of thirty odd years. 

“You invited us here,” G mutters into his beer. “We can always order Chinese.”

“Nah, fuck that. No Chinese. I cooked it, you’re eating it. Here,” Jake slams a bottle of wine on the table. “Drink,” he nods to Nolan. Simmer limps over with wine glasses. G fills them, handing one to Simmer, but leaving the third where it is. Nolan has to reach across the table to grab his glass and recognizes how G’s given him the choice. 

The food’s a bit saturated with oil, but Nolan would rather take a Weber slapshot to the shin than mention anything. He’s halfway through his third helping when G exhales across the table and Nolan thinks _ Here we go _. 

And, okay, he knows he’s not playing very well, but it hurts his pride that they think he needs a lecture. He fucking _ knows _, okay. He hasn’t stopped thinking about a neutral zone turnover to Draisitl and that was three games ago. There’s nothing they can tell him that he doesn’t already know. 

_ There’s only so much you can do after all the rehab, bud _ . His dad would say over the phone. _ It can take half a year sometimes to get the legs back, you know that. You just gotta be patient. Use your smarts. Don’t worry about the points, they’ll come. _

But they haven’t. Not the way he’s expected they would, anyway. He knew it’d be near impossible so soon after the hernia to light up the league, but he hasn’t earned a point in nine games. It makes his palms itch. 

G levels him with a look and Nolan’s ready for the reaming, but instead he says: “Are you and Teeks bonded?” 

A pause. 

Nolan lowers his knife and fork, finishes the bite in his mouth, and wiping the oil from his lips with the back of his hand, sighs. “Said he wouldn’t say anything.”

G smirks, “He didn’t.”

Nolan presses his fingers so hard into his eyelids he sees color. “Damn it.”

“S’alright. Rookie move.” 

“I didn’t want it to be, like, a thing.”

“You know all athletes are required to submit an appeal to DPS--” 

“Yeah.” Unable to look at any of them, “Sorry.”

“S’okay, there’s a grace period. But you’re gonna have to do some examinations with medical. Just preliminary stuff until the league approves you playing together.”

Simmer burps, “The dumbest fucking rule.” 

“Will we still get to play?”

Jake twirls the wine stem, “Depends on how slow they process the paperwork. Could miss a game.”

Nolan crosses his arms. “Not like I’m doing shit out there anyways. It’ll suck for your line, though, without TK.”

“Oh, so that’s what you’re doing, eh?” G sucks his front teeth. “Feeling sorry for yourself, huh? We all have bad stretches. Hey, look at me. We know it’s hard. You just gotta keep grindin.” 

“Keep doin’ what you’re doing. Just find a way to relax, y’know. Don’t clutch your stick so hard,” Simmer says, slurring consonance through the gaps in his teeth.

Jake leans over the table, finger pointed. “And stay away from Twitter, don’t even read that shit, man. I’m telling you. It’s crap. Fucking Cardidi--”

“Carchidi.”

“Whatever. Fuck that guy. Never play a game in his life. How should he know what it’s like for us? He just sits there typing on his little computer like he knows something. He doesn’t know his ass from his mouth, shit’s just coming out wherever.”

“And talk to Konecny.” G kicks his foot under the table. “You’re lucky, you know. Not many people get to play with their bondmate.”

Nolan’s been in G’s house. He’s seen the pictures of the Briere kids on the fridge and tries to reconcile himself with the fact that the bond’s not going anywhere and neither is Teeks.

  
  


When Travis’s brother found his bondmate, they went to the doctor in Chatham-Kent to register and even way out there, halfway to bumfuck, the doctor insisted on seeing them separately before interviewing them together. Travis never went to med school, but he’s pretty sure this is breaking like some kind of health code.

It’s after morning skate and they’ve got Travis and Nolan sitting on the same examination table, thighs pressing together on the sanitary paper. It crinkles every time Travis moves and Nolan kicks his ankle to get him to stop squirming while they wait for the team physician to show up. They play Carolina tonight and the front office is trying to avoid a suspension from the Department of Player Safety by pushing the paperwork through before puck drop, hence the rushed proceedings. 

Malpractice or not, the questionnaire they’re required to fill out is kinda pathetic:

_ Do you feel comfortable playing on the same team as your bondmate? _

_ Has your center of gravity been disrupted since bonding? _

_ Do you feel any nausea unrelated to food borne illness/the flu or a prior medical condition? (The occasional bout of nausea is normal, but should nausea occur more than three times in the same week, please speak to your team’s medical personnel.) _

The physician asks them about their diets and behavioral history. Travis tries to peel his sweaty thighs from the table, but rips the paper instead. 

“Are you feeling any emotional sensations that aren’t your own?”

Nolan says no and Travis follows suit, “Not really, no.”

“Yes or no answers only, please.”

“No.”

The team physician does a few more tests, marking his clipboard. “Looks like neither of your motor skills have been impaired, so you should be cleared for contact. As for the, uh, mental side of things, well, that can take longer to develop. We’ll revisit that sometime in January since neither of you are showing signs of emotional congruence, at the moment. When that does happen, it can be...challenging,” he clears his throat “to experience someone else’s feelings. In the event either of you begin to get overwhelmed by the bond, know that we have these services available. Different, um, therapies and things of that nature. Nothing to be ashamed of, boys. It’s very common these days.”

The dude says it so gamely, like he’s ended the stigma against mental illness right there in the examination room. 

The fluorescents beam down with all the reverential light of a nativity scene: Behold! Baby Jesus and his mute jackass. Assuming Travis is baby Jesus in this scenario because Patty has literally said one word throughout this whole medical pageantry, choosing instead to stare mulishly at the game day calendar tacked to the door. Raff and a little dog beam at them from the page of December. 

As they leave the training room with some brochures on bond connectivity, Travis watches as Nolan folds his into a billion squares, seemingly with the intention of never opening them again. Travis tucks his into his pocket because you never know. Or, at least he never knows with Nolan. It’s been two months since the bond solidified and he still feels dumber than shit in regards to his hulking, surly teammate. You just never know what you’re gonna get. 

Nolan’s face is blank walking back into the locker room. The truth is betrayed only to Travis who feels anxiety pulse through the bond, coiled and spasmatic along every friggin chakra in his body. 

“What’s up, you loverfucks.” 

Travis flips the voice off to jeers and an errant clapping.

“Ignore ‘em. They want what we got, baby.” Travis says in an undertone, knocking his elbow into Nolan when they reach their stalls. Nolan takes his advice literally, apparently, and ignores Travis.

Whatever. Baby Jesus worked miracles, Travis can too. 

The season is long, so he tries to keep it light. 

A documentary on the jurassic period plays on mute while Travis crouches over Nolan as he naps on the couch. He tugs the strings of Nolan’s sweatshirt so that the hood scrunches around his face. He looks like a grumpy baby when he scowls into cognizance. Probably looked like that coming out of the womb. It brings Travis a modicum of joy on this otherwise boring off-day.

“Let’s go get Wawa.”

“You fucking get Wawa, I’m busy.”

“Busy being a fuckin’ slouch.” Travis leans back, pulling the strings tighter. Nolan’s hair squishes out from under the hood. “C’mon Pat, please. Please. Be a homie. You know the lady there hates me.”

Nolan burrows further into the cushions. “Yeah, cause you always spill coffee on the counter. I told you the lids don’t snap, you have to actually check them.”

Travis groans, head-butting Nolan’s chest. “Then go with me. Close my friggin lid so she doesn’t give me a ban. Babe, come on. We’ll get those chicken things.”

“The buffalo ones?” Nolan muffles into the cushion. 

Travis nods emphatically, flicking the hoodie strings like battle ropes. “Yeah, whatever you want. You just have to come with me.”

Nolan slaps his hands away. “Sure, fine. Whatever. Get off.”

As Nolan rolls himself up off the couch, Travis clings to his back like a koala. 

“Woah, look at that deadlift. What a rocket.”

“Jesus, get off. Go get my birkies.”

Much like a child given a meaningless task, Travis hops off Patty and complies. Plopping them down by Nolan’s feet, he looks quizzical. “They’re gonna be ugly with those socks though, bro.”

“Uh, it’s called a vibe.”

“Hashtag Manitoba homeless.”

“Don’t question me, you camo loving fuck. Get your ugly ass Yeezys on and let’s go.”

  
  


After postgame shower in Chicago, Nolan is scrolling through his phone and trying to avoid dripping water on the screen. Teeks is in the stall next to him, singing the words to some Beastie Boys song Hagg’s pumping through the locker room. He’d be easier to drown out if he wasn’t half a second late to every verse. “Fucking get on cue, man. It’s the same three lyrics. You have--”

“Your _ RIGHT _ to... paaar- _ TAAAYY _.”

“--like, zero musical talent.” 

“Haggs, play Patty’s song. Play the one that goes: _‘NO SLEEP TILL.’”_

“Don’t.”

_ “What one?” _

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Hagger--the one that’s like, ‘NO SLEEP TILL’--and then…”

“Literally. ‘Brooklyn.’ It’s literally only four words.”

“Eh, there we go, baby. That’s it, your fav.”

“Oh my god.” 

_ “This one’s for you, Patty!” _

Nolan sucks his cheek and refuses to look at Travis’s pleased expression as the Beastie Boys get louder and louder. Whoever gave Hagg the aux is not a team player, like at all. 

His phone vibrates.

_ we still on for dinner, my place ? _

Three vegetable emojis accompany the text. God, Jonathan definitely doesn’t know what an eggplant means in today’s society. So it’s even more unfortunate and slightly embarrassing that Nolan’s, like, totally boned up about it, actually. 

  
  


Toews is smoking a joint on the couch after dinner. Asks if he wants any. 

Nolan shakes his head, thinking that when you’ve taken a victory lap with Lord Stanley you can afford to smoke a little dope. But when you’re still proving yourself and there’s all of Philadelphia breathing down your neck just waiting for an excuse to exile you to bust territory, it’s not worth the call from DPS. 

The last thing Nolan Patrick needs in a working class city is to be seen as some lazy stoner. 

Thumping the smoke from his chest, Toews coughs. “How’s it going with the bond? Any better?” 

Nolan strokes the leaves on the indoor tomato plant with a fascination usually reserved for children at hands-on museums then shrugs. “It’s okay. Complicated.”

The way Toews doesn’t respond and just smiles at the joint in his lap makes Nolan feel about twelve years old. 

Of course it’s complicated, they’re all complicated. You don’t have your life threads intertwined with someone else’s without getting some crossed. And it’s not like Toews doesn’t know complicated. There’s no trace of eighty-eight in the apartment. Just one Stanley Cup photo with the whole team hanging in the hallway, “From the first time,” Toews had said without a trace of arrogance, because, oh yeah, the dude has _ three _. 

Nolan remembers watching it on TV in their basement. They had a nicer set up in the living room but somehow the whole family ended up down there. Nolan had laid on the carpet in 2010, age eleven, thinking about another kid from Winnipeg winning it all. Long after his parents and sisters went back upstairs, he’d stayed watching all the post-game interviews and the champagne celebration in the locker room, watching Toews face, so young, almost the age Nolan is now and thinking he was fucking _ everything _. And if maybe he could taste just a drop of that success, than all of it would be worth it. The training, the rehab, the soreness, his parents discussing the price of gas per month, the shit said in locker rooms, everything, everything. It’d make some kind of sense. 

Now ten years later he’s in Toews’ apartment, playing for the team the Blackhawks beat that day. 

“I’ve been practicing patience like we talked about,” Nolan sits down on the couch facing Johnny, cheek resting on the back cushion. “I’ve been like so patient.”

“Oh, yeah?” Johnny smiles and takes another puff. ‘“Bout what?” 

Nolan tucks hair behind his ear. “I’ve been waiting for lanes to open more often, not just trying to force passes through like before. Especially on the power play when I’m below the goal line.”

“And outside of hockey?” Toews is smiling and Nolan gets the feeling he’s being laughed at. “Gotta be somethin’ else, eh?” 

For fourteen minutes of ice time he had to deal with Keith poke-checking him two feet into the zone after every entry and fucking DeBrincat in his face after every whistle. Somehow, after keeping it cool all game, this rattles him.

Pressing his cheek into the coarse cushion, Nolan can’t process the words before they’re on his tongue. They come from the back of his brain, some undisclosed location beyond thought and reason. “I mean, I’ve been waiting for you to fuck me for like five months. I’d say that’s pretty decent.” 

Nolan’s been thinking about it since summer. The way Johnny had knocked shoulders with him in the kitchen or let him wear his clothes after workouts. Hand on the back of his neck. Fingers in his hair, _ You growin’ out the flow? What a beauty, huh.... _ The cold press of the lake all around him, holding him together so he didn’t explode. 

Nolan can feel the heat on his face like a second skin, shame slicking his body with sweat. He doesn’t want to look up, but he’s not a coward so he drags his eyes from the couch.

Johnny’s not smiling anymore and, fuck, Nolan can’t take it back. And he’s not even sure he wants to. He needs something, anything to curb this hunger; there've been too many roadies, not enough points, and Travis is always gone these days.

“C’mon, you knew. You knew all last summer.”

“Yeah,” Johnny swallows and it moves his whole throat. “Thought maybe you’d get over it.”

Nolan scoffs. “I’ve been jerking it to you since I was twelve, dude. I didn’t get over it. I’m not.” 

“I won my first Cup when you were twelve.” As if this is information they’ve discussed before. Or like maybe he’s thought about it. 

“I know.” 

Johnny leans forward and places the joint on a tray on the coffee table. “Konecny know about this crusade of yours?”

“We’re not like that.”

“What are you like then?” 

Nolan rubs the words on his collarbone, frowning. “Just buddies. It’s—complicated. He’s in a relationship with someone. We’re lineys, so the bond’s good for that and not much else, to be honest.”

Johnny is watching Nolan’s face carefully. And Nolan’s not lying. He and TK _ are _ buddies, but the word for whatever they are isn’t in Nolan’s vocabulary. There’s a line between friendship and something else and Nolan doesn’t know where the line is anymore. 

But the line with Toews? He’s known where that line is since they met at the draft in June. Could trace it in his sleep. 

_ Three feet between you on the couch. _

_ Stop fucking staring. _

_ You can’t fucking jizz in his sweats in his guest bedroom, get a grip_. 

And this feeling he has at the moment is almost repulsive: like if someone doesn’t touch him right now he’s going to cry. When he exhales his breath dampens the cushion. Either he’s going to get fucked or he’s going to leave here and cry in the elevator. He’s so keyed up, he could fucking cry anyway. 

Nolan watches Johnny watch him. It’s a stand-off. He bites a strip of skin off his lip, watching Johnny watch him and thinks, _Fuck this._

“Listen, I don’t wanna talk about Konecny or myself or anyone. If that’s an issue, I’ll fuck off. No problem.” He untucks his legs and stands, trying to distance himself from the vulnerability of the moment. 

“Bud. Hey.” 

Nolan is patting his pockets for his phone, hotel keycard. Shame is like water in his cupped hands, spilling through his fingers onto the carpet. 

_ “Nolan.” _

Almost compulsively, Nolan wraps hair behind his ear then turns around. 

It’s ridiculous how calm Toews looks, hands folded in his lap. They could be talking about anything. “Just checking in. Sometimes you don’t always know how the bonds are going to respond. They can work kinetically depending on the pair, almost like a feedback loop. I wanted to make sure you and he didn’t share any of those side-effects.”

Nolan’s sure whatever ‘kinetically’ means, he and Teeks don’t have it. They have drop passes and one-timers, perfectly placed. Everything else in the bond is white noise. 

Johnny unclasps his watch and places it on the coffee table. The underside of his wrist is untanned, pale like the belly of a fish. It flashes smooth and bright for a split second before all Nolan can see are the suntanned forearms, remnants of that summer. 

Nolan got none of that. Just a sunburn that peeled off within the week, tacky with aloe vera. 

Johnny taps the back of Nolan’s thigh, moving him closer. “If I touched you, would he feel it?” 

“We don’t, uh,” shaking his head as much to clear it as anything, “I can’t feel anything from him. And I know he would have said something if he was getting feedback.” Now there’s an ugly thought. Nolan doesn’t want to think about Teeks feeling whatever’s going on inside his head considering Nolan barely wants to feel it. 

“You sure? I don’t want to cause problems for you.”

“You’re already a goddamn problem for me.”

That earns him a small smile and Nolan knows how to play this. It’s become almost instinctive since the summer, like a game between them. The game goes like this: Nolan pushes and Johnny lets him.

With guys like G and Jake and Simmer, Nolan wants to show them he can take care of himself, that he’s got it, he doesn’t need the affirmations that other kids need. He can make plays, he can take hits, he can fight his own battles. But Johnny’s not like that, doesn’t want to take care of him. So Nolan climbs onto his lap. 

And if it wasn’t okay, he definitely would not be putting his hands there, on Nolan’s thighs and up to his waist. Hands dry and scraping the soft skin of his belly as he pushes off Nolan’s sweatshirt and slides his hand past the band of Nolan’s sweats. Their collective spit in his palm. Mouth urging Nolan forward. 

Nolan tries to breathe through it, but when Johnny grabs him at the hip and shoves down so that Nolan can feel the phantom press of his dick through only two layers of sweats, he whines high in his throat. _ That’s fucking--fucking embarassing, dude _ he thinks to himself before grinding down. With bated breath and sweat collecting at the nape of his neck, Nolan fucks up into Toews’ hand, clenching his teeth until his jaw spasms. The callouses on Johnny’s palm skim the head and it’s sweet enough to make him flinch. He grabs at Johnny’s other hand, urges him over, right there to the cleft of his ass where Nolan so desperately wants him to be. He’s murmuring into his shoulder and even thinking about how hard the dude’s trapezius muscles are make Nolan dazed. What a freak. 

_ C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. _

“Where’re your fucking manners, bud.” Johnny laughs and Nolan can feel it reverberate against his lips, open on Johnny’s neck. Nolan scrapes his teeth across, squirming against his thighs, _C’mon c’mon-- _

Johnny’s hand tightens around his base. Nolan tries to buck up, eyes watering, almost pissed off. This feels like cheating, to get him so close, so fucking close--

“So greedy, eh. What about patience? What did we talk about.” 

Nolan lets out a genuine, not sexy groan. “Are you kidding me.” 

“I think you should have to wait for it. What have you done to deserve this,” a finger pushes down through the sweatpants right over Nolan’s hole, right where he needs him. But then the pressure’s gone. 

Nolan bites down in frustration, a ring of spit spreading across Johnny’s t-shirt.

Snapping the band of Nolan’s pants hard against his lower back, Johnny laughs. Jerks him once, twice. Says, _Such a fucking brat._

One, then two fingers up into him. Over and over.

As the pressure builds within his body, it’s like the culmination of a childhood of deification. Nolan, age thirteen, choosing the number nineteen off a list his coach passed around. _ Nineteen, eh? We got the next Jonathan Toews over here, boys. _Burping through cans of cheap beer in his buddy’s basement, watching in envy and awe as the Hawks win again and again, his eyes barely blinking as he tracks that one-nine jersey across the ice. 

Nolan’s consciousness dissipates so brutally when he comes that he feels faint. Heart beating harder than it does on the finish line of a bag skate. Mind blank like a fresh coat of prairie snow, numb to sound and sense alike. 

When his brain matter returns to form like pixels collecting into high-def, Nolan looks down at himself. “You just made me your fucking slut, Jesus Christ.” He tucks himself back into his sweats, perspiration coating his back, cum drying on his stomach. He’s a holy mess while Johnny looks more or less composed. 

Sliding from the couch, Nolan settles to his knees. Trying to catch his breath, he nods to the wet spot on Toews’ sweats where the outline of his dick strains into the pant leg. “You want me to?”

Perhaps he can see it in Nolan’s face, this need for approval. He’s always wanted to be told he’s doing good on the ice, in the training room, on the bench. This is no different when he’s got Toews leaking against him, tongue tasting the precum through the cotton of his pants. 

With a hand cradling the side of Nolan’s head, not pushing away nor urging him onward, they hang suspended in the moment. Fingers curling in his hair, Johnny swallows hard, settling himself. After a breath, he shakes his head. “I’m good, bud.”

“You sure?”

He releases Nolan’s hair, gently brushing it back from his face. “Not tonight. Some other time. C’mon,” he eases Nolan off the carpet and it’s like they’re back to normal. Slaps him on the ass, “Hit the showers.” 

Knees popping as he stands with sweatshirt in hand, Nolan purses his mouth. “Is this like one of your Miyagi things? Blue ball yourself until you achieve enlightenment or something?”

Johnny was reaching for his joint on the table, but is clearly caught off guard. He chokes on a laugh. “Something like that, yeah.”

It’s only until Nolan’s in the back of an uber on the way to the hotel that he realizes maybe Kane would feel it. Maybe that torch is still carried through the bond between them. Probably down to embers by now. 

Nolan can’t imagine being bonded to someone like that. Someone who you could no longer look in the eye. 

  
  


“You see Toews?” TK asks from beneath the comforter, voice muffled by sleep.

“Says hi,” is all Nolan mumbles, ripping his sweatshirt off before he crawls into bed. 

  
  


From ages four to eleven Nolan lived in his sister’s armpit. He became very comfortable there. Got used to the angle so that he wouldn’t tweak his neck or overwork his shoulders. The big mistake was struggling. If you struggled, Madison squeezed tighter and bound you to her fucked up center of gravity.

“You’re kinda being a grade-A tool bag.”

Kinda like now.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Don’t ask for my advice then.”

He had enough time to meet her for dinner before curfew. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity where she wasn’t away on a roadie for the University of B.C. and the Flyers were in Vancouver. 

Despite being a D-man who frequently posted up at the blueline, she hadn’t been able to physically overpower him since he turned twelve, but emotionally? He might as well be right there in the crook of her arm again. 

Nolan mops a fry in gravy. “All I’m saying is why do I need to be friends with his girlfriend?”

“Maybe it’d make things less...tense.”

“Look, like. Can’t I just say no? Like ‘No, sorry I can’t go to your weird girlfriend’s birthday party, I’d rather stay home and play Mario.’” 

“No.”

“Jesus, why the fuck not.”

“Because, you douche. It’d hurt his feelings. He obviously wants you to be there. And you know he’d do it for you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t date skeevy chicks so it wouldn’t be the same thing.”

“That’s because you are the skeevy chick, Nolan. Surprise.” 

Mads was supposed to absolve him of all bond-ly responsibilities, not strong arm him into developing moral fiber. Nolan eats another fry and glumly licks the gravy off his hand.

“What even makes her skeevy,” Madison asks, biting on her straw.

Nolan’s only form of recon on this girl is a playlist Travis plays when he highjacks the aux. “She thinks Oasis is, like, good.”

“Oh fuck you, bud. First of all, Oasis _ is _ good. No, we’re not discussing it. Second of all, that’s not skeevy, that’s just basic. And I think Travis deserves to be basic. He’s out there living and laughing and, like loving someone. Be supportive.”

Nolan resists the urge to bite back, _ They’ve only been dating for a month. _ “Whatever.” A toddler over Madison’s shoulder in the next booth is staring at him, but Nolan isn’t into child pandering and ignores it.

“Maybe you could just communicate with him.”

“About what.”

Madison sighs and tightens her bun passively like she’s not about to drag him through the mud. “I’m not doing this shit with you, bro. If you can’t come to terms with the situation by yourself, then I dunno what to tell you.”

“Terms with what?”

“No. Figure it out.”

“That’s why I asked you to dinner, that’s why I--”

“Oh, grow up. You asked me so you could complain about Travis’s weird girlfriend and how weird she is in contrast to, what? How _ not _ weird you are? Good luck.”

“Definitely not why--”

“I love you, bro. But your whole ‘I’m unknowable’ vibe is really starting--”

“Okay, _ fuck _. Fine, but I still don’t know what to do about it.” 

“Tell him the truth.”

“Oh, wow. Should I be paying you for this advice, or.”

“Don’t be a jerk, just do it.”

“Fine.” Nolan kneads the back of his neck. “I’ll talk to him.”

  
  


They’re at the worst friggin birthday party in the entire world and someone swings the door to the garage into Nolan’s temple. Slamming it on their face, Nolan shouts “Not a bathroom!” 

They had to relocate from yelling at each other in a house full of drunk people, to yelling at each other someplace quieter. Maybe they were arguing about the beer pong tournament, or about Nolan being a prick because he was always a piece of work these days, or maybe it was the way he’d barely responded to Travis’s girlfriend when she asked, kindly albeit naively, how the season was going. Nolan just downed the rest of his beer and walked away. 

Travis knows that some part of Nolan could acknowledge that wasn’t fair of him, but the overwhelming sentiment of Patty’s life at the moment seemed to be injustice: bad bounces, a puck to the back of the helmet so hard he had to get stitches, a freaking concussion. Literally nothing is going his way. 

And behind the thick kevlar vest of pride, Nolan could admit to himself he was his own worst enemy, but he’s not about to admit it four beers deep and ornery. Travis knows this already, but it doesn’t stop him from chewing his ass out.

Turning back to Travis with one arm still holding the door closed, Nolan looks like he does in the middle of a scrum, caustic and flinty eyed. “And how do you fucking know how I feel about it, huh?”

Broad shoulders stretching the entire length of the doorway, Patty’s squaring up for a fight in which he has zero--and Travis means _ zero _ \--ground to stand on. One of the good things about their friendship, bondship, whatever the hell they are, is Travis doesn’t call Pat’s bluff. With the _ I’m goods _ or the _ I’m fines_, or the endless other platitudes he uses to get Travis off his case. Travis lets him have those because when nothing’s going right on the ice, sometimes you just have to bet on yourself because no one else will. But right now, with Patty’s stupid drunk blush and his stupid anxiety undercutting whatever buzz Travis had going, he decides it’s time to call game. 

“Because I can fucking feel it. Every day, it’s like you’re right here.” Travis pounds on his diaphragm. 

Nolan stares, expression flickering between nothing and something Travis hasn’t seen on him before. He looks younger. Like he’s scared. “You said you couldn’t feel anything.”

“Guess I fucking lied.”

“What do you mean, ‘feel it’? What does that even mean.”

“I didn’t understand at first--thought maybe I was making shit up in my head or something. Or maybe you were just too good at pretending you weren’t busted up about everything because it took me a week to realize they were _ your _ feelings, not mine. And speaking of fucking liars. How many more times can you look me in the eye and tell me you’re ‘fine’? Bud, you’re the farthest thing from fine. Way to go, Pats. Call me a liar, whatever, but you’re right there with me. Same fucking boat.” 

“It’s not my fucking fault--” Pat starts defensively, but something erupts and cracks inside Travis all at once. 

“Of course it’s not your fucking fault! That’s my effing point. What you’re feeling--holy shit, Pat.” He laughs but there’s no humor in it. “I don’t know how you live like this and not absolutely lose it. Like, you’re living your dream, right? You made it to the show, you deserve to be happy! Instead you’re bottoming out every time someone even mentions the draft. It’s bullshit. I thought I could do something, like maybe make it better--” 

“You do make it better,” Nolan cuts him off, syllables running together. “It’s not on you to make me better. It’s on me.” 

And that’s the kind of hockey boy bullshit Travis hates. Whatever coach told him that when he was too young to know better deserves to feel Travis’s boot up his ass. 

“Bro, but it doesn’t have to be. It shouldn’t. You can’t keep saying everything’s fine. It’s not fine,” he waves his arms out wildly. “We suck, we’re fucking rock bottom right now. No one is happy. Sometimes you just gotta...accept it...like, y’know?” He shrugs to punctuate how obscene this entire situation is. Eight goddamn goalies, Hexy gone, Hak walking around Voorhees like he didn’t have a noose around his neck, all the while everyone knew he was a dead man walking. This season blew chunks. 

Whitney Houston comes on behind the door and they both listen to the opening beats. 

“I won’t ask again or bug you about it, but. Please. You gotta talk to someone sometimes. Me or like G, or your sisters. I hate--it sucks seeing you like this. Or if you need space, I can--”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“It helps. You being around,” Nolan wipes snot on his sleeve. “I don’t want to be this way, it just…”

“Yeah,” Travis nods, slowly, he gets it. “But that’s what I’m here for, that’s why we’re bonded.” Travis steps closer so that his shoes are bumping into the toes of Nolan’s Jesus sandals. When Nolan tucks his nose into the crook of Travis’s neck, even if he has to hunch down to do it, Travis knows it was the right move from the way Nolan’s entire body relaxes. Travis scrunches his fingers into the fabric of Nolan’s jacket. 

“You’re a real stubborn asshole, sometimes, you know that?” 

“But you love me anyways.” It doesn’t come out as cocksure as Nolan probably wanted. Travis just tightens his grip and tries to send every good vibe and energy he can spare between the press of their bodies, because yeah. He really fucking does. 

Through the bond he can feel it like a bird in his hands, how fast Patty’s heart is beating and how he just as easily could have stayed silent as speak. He can’t always say what’s on his mind, not in the way Travis can. Travis takes a moment to feel proud of him.

There’s just enough beer in Travis’s system to morph time. They could have stayed like that for a minute or five. 

Unaware of the total _ moment _ occurring behind the door, some dipshit tries to shove it open again, rocking their entire hug off balance. “It’s not a-- _ fucking _\--bathroom!” Nolan and Travis slam their fists into the door so hard the little stopper vibrates on its spring. 

On the drive back into downtown, Nolan plays his sad boy indie music and Travis taps the steering wheel watching the city unfold out the windshield. 

“I don’t actually hate Oasis.”

Travis smirks, “Yeah, Pat. I know.”

“And I don’t hate Emma. I’m just not that good at sharing, I guess. I dunno.” 

A grin splits Travis’s face apart and he’s thankful they’re out of the streetlight so Nolan can’t see the heat creeping up his neck. 

  
  


Nolan doesn’t trust the bond. So he turns a blind eye and pushes forward as if it doesn’t exist. Ignores it like he ignored the pain in his shoulder, in his collarbone, in his abdomen. Ignoring it until the soft tissue holding his core muscles together fissured like segments of a walleye meat.

Some people say the bond feels like intuition, but Nolan doesn’t know how to separate that from anxiety. When Nolan asks Travis how he trusted that Nolan would be the _one,_ the right soulmate, Travis just kinda shrugs. Nolan doesn’t get it. 

“I just had this like, a feeling. I dunno how to explain it.” 

_ “Try.” _

“I just. Like I just saw you and went ‘well alright.’ Y’know? Like, I didn’t really think about it.”

“And what, you just...fucking…” Nolan waves his hand about, “fell in love, or whatever? Just like that?”

They never bothered to turn on the lights in the apartment after it got dark, so they sit in the light of the TV screen, bodies intangible except for the dim glow against their faces. It makes it easier for Nolan to talk about these things, the way people get into confession booths and tell all the worst shit they’ve ever done to someone because if you can’t see them passing judgement maybe it’s not there. It’s hard to reconcile the priest and Teeks in his head. He’s more like the Wizard of Oz. 

“No, Pat, that’s not….It was just.” Travis exhales. “It was like, no matter what you did I would understand. Even when you were a piece of shit to me, like, I _ got _ it. Not excusing it, bro, cause you were an asshole. But I felt like I knew why you did the things you did, and it just made me, like...warm, kinda? Like I didn’t feel alone. Even if you were going through crap, having a tough go of it, y’know, I felt like we were together. In my stomach. It felt warm. I mean...Yeah, warm, I guess.” Travis scratches his shitty beard, other hand hovering over his belly. 

“I don’t. I don’t feel, like, any of that, bro. I don’t know what’s wrong. Something’s fucked.” Fucked in his body. What kind of person can’t feel their bondmate?

Teeks rests the controller on his lap, leaning against Nolan’s shoulder. “Bud, you’re fine. You don’t need to feel shit, it’s whatever, there’re no rules with these things. It’s all body chemistry and phormones and stuff.” 

_ Pheromones, _ Nolan thinks. 

“Like right now. You smell like shit, but hey, I’m cool with it.” 

Nolan bucks his shoulder up, dislodging TK’s head. “That’s not the bond, that’s you being a fucking freak. Press start.” 

Travis hesitates, watching Nolan from his peripherals. “You sure, bud?” 

“I’m good.”

They’re halfway through the COD mission when Nolan says, “Thanks.”

He’s worried Travis didn’t hear him and he’s gonna have to say it again, but then from the darkness of the living room comes--and so goddamn earnest: “I like being here with you. You know that, right?” 

And the real shit kicker is Travis would say it even with the lights on. He’s braver than Nolan that way. 

When he’s finally able to speak it comes out more breath than sound. But Travis is so close, Nolan’s sure he can tell. “I’m glad. That it was you.”

  
  


They go on a roadie. They come home and the tarmac’s covered in snow. They fluctuate in the standings, but are ultimately falling short. The stitches behind Nolan’s ear heal and Travis runs his fingers over the white scar tissue as they sit on the couch. Nolan thinks about getting a dog but doesn’t. He gets these weird blurry spots at the corners of his eyes, but doesn’t tell anyone, not even Teeks. He’s dealing with it. 

  
  


Barging into Nolan’s apartment with his spare key, Travis announces, “I broke up with her.”

After a long drawn out pause... a deep, un-enunciated _ Shit, dude _ is all he gets in response.

It’s like talking to the sloths in the DMV scene of _ Zootopia._

Travis doesn’t know who’s the dumber bitch at the moment: Nolan for not recognizing Travis is in obvious distress, or Travis for expecting him to. 

Travis doesn’t say anything for a moment, catching his breath. The elevator was taking too long so he ran the five flights instead. 

Nolan’s drinking a kale protein garbage smoothie and scrolling through some girl’s ass shots on instagram instead of giving Travis the amount of attention he feels the situation warrants. “Stop fucking drinking your fucking smoothie and look at me.” 

Nolan has a green mustache and frowns, probably at Travis’s sudden anger. The outbursts are status quo, the frustration not so much. He licks his upper lip and sets his phone down on the table. Then, with an artistic flair he must have studied from Madison and Aimee in their teenage years, Nolan stands and repositions the chair away from the table and turns it to face Travis--still standing in the entryway, sunglasses pushed into his hair. Nolan takes his time sitting down just to piss Travis off.

Once seated, man-spreading with his hands comfortably interlocked over his stomach, Nolan inclines his head as if to say, _ Well, get on with it. _

God, he hates this asshole so much. “Well, don’t you have anything to say?”

Nolan shrugs like a one trick pony. “I’m sorry that you weren’t happy, I guess. I mean,” scratches the back of his neck, hair down to his shoulders by now. “She seemed…” he mulls through a few options, jaw working around the cud of downright rudeness, “...nice.” 

Travis knows Pat didn’t really care about Emma, there’s no point in pretending otherwise. He scoffs, “Yeah, she was.”

“So why’d you break up with her, then?”

Travis ignores this question and stares at Nolan’s t-shirt. It has a fish on it and says _ I just want to drink beer and jerk my rod. _It’s instantly familiar. “Hey, is that my fucking shirt?”

“It was in my dryer.”

“Just because it was in your dryer doesn’t mean it’s yours.” Nolan rolls his eyes and Travis realizes he’s off point. “She didn’t really get it. The way we live.”

“Like the roadies and stuff?”

Travis shakes his head, shutting his eyes so that maybe he can land the right series of words on the slot machine in his brain. “No, I mean, like. Us. She didn’t get how we were bonded. Her bondmate’s her sorority sister.”

“So?”

“It’s different for them.”

“How is that different. Sounds like the exact same thing to me.”

“They’re friends, like best friends.”

“What, you’re saying we’re not fucking friends?” Nolan laughs, but it’s got an edge.

Travis runs a hand through his hair, dislodging his sunglasses. They fall to the kitchen floor, but he doesn’t move to pick them up. This is coming out all wrong. “She didn’t know why we were always fighting. And I started thinking, like.” Nolan’s face is halfway shuttered, like he’s not sure if this is going to hurt him. “Like are we friends, Pat? Genuinely. We argue all the time and I don’t know. I’m just worried, like, are you happy? Are you--do I make it worse for you?”

Nolan’s jaw is so tight, Travis can see the little muscles tensing. “I cannot believe you’re doing this right now.”

“I’m just trying--”

“I told you, I’m getting better. I’m working on it. You said you wouldn’t--You said you’d stick around.”

“I am, I’m not gonna leave. I’m just.”

“Just what?”

“Trying to figure out...what we’re doing. Like what are we doing here?”

“I don’t get it.”

Travis doesn’t know how to say it, these thoughts welling inside of him like a spring. Or a backed up toilet. He’s worried about what he’s gonna say and if he’ll regret it. 

“I don’t want to be friends anymore. I’m--” Nolan looks like someone just slapped him. “I’m tired of being your friend. Like, sometimes I look at you and it makes my,” he swallows through the dry spit in his mouth, “my entire body just--just hums. And you’re so fucking pretty sometimes I can’t even remember what you’re talking about, like you’re saying something and I just...can’t even hear. Like...” Nolan’s catching on now because his mouth is slightly open in shock and Travis has never seen that expression on his face before, but Travis can’t think about what Patty’s thinking or he’ll stop talking and he needs to get through this. “I was at the grocery store yesterday and...I was looking for fuckin’ burritos and you text me to get more lunch meat--No, shut up, let me talk. And I was in the frozen food aisle and thought, like, what if this was my life? Every day with you...like that. And I just want to know what we’re doing here, Pat. Because I really, really want that.” 

Nolan’s cheeks are red, face downturned with his stupid Manitoba drawl intoning flat across the room, “Sure took your fuckin’ time about it.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

Travis blinks, the slot machine inside his brain whirling with lights and sounds but landing on absolutely nothing. “So what are you...are you agreeing with me? Are we on the same level here…?” Cause Travis is pretty sure he just said he wanted to live his whole life with him and Nolan looks relatively unbothered. 

“You’re about three levels below me there, bro. You need to get on my level.”

“What level are you on?” Travis’s voice raises in pitch.

“The one that’s been waiting for you to break up with your girlfriend since November.” 

“Oh.”

“Boss battle was beating her at beer pong.”

“Dude, you totally crushed it.”

“I know.”

  
  


It’s amazing how they’ve gotten here. All the cells that divided to get them to this point.

They’ve never done _ this _ before. But through alternative mediums like sweat soaked dreams or locker rooms glances they’ve done it a thousand times.

It’s not sexy. It’s a bumbling audition for all the roles they’ve fantasized about playing. Travis has Nolan in hand and Nolan’s sucking air through his teeth because _ Too tight, too tight. _ And they’re laughing too hard to come and then getting hard all over again because the sound of their lips together is something you forget to add in when you jerk off in the shower about your best friend. Nolan licks sweat off Travis’s neck and Travis thinks, _Oh._ Travis gets Nolan on his back and tells him how pretty he is. The best thing isn’t the precum leaking over their fingers, but how Nolan can’t look at Travis when he’s whispering things to him. How good he is, how good he feels, how pretty he is, especially when he blushes, and Travis says _ Hey look at me, babe. Pat, look at me _ into his sweaty hairline. And even though they’re connected from the soul, Travis has never felt so much for another person as he does then, when Patty finally looks at him and it’s too much, too fucking much. 

  
  


“Guess evolution knew I’d be a fucking mess, huh? When it gave me you.”

Travis turns his head on the pillow. “Evolution knew I’d be fucking in love with you.”

Nolan goes still like he’s hunting something in the grass, not wanting to miss a single sound. There’s Travis’s shallow breath and the sound of his feet tangling the sheets. “Hey. Say it again.”

Travis blushes, one eye buried in the pillow so Nolan can’t see what his idiotic face is doing. “I’m like so in love with you, dude.”

“I felt that. The bond.” Nolan says with awe in his voice as he traces the abdominal line down his stomach. “I could feel it. Do it again.”

Travis jams his face into the pillow, cheeks so warm he feels them in the third degree.

Nolan shoves him in the shoulder. “I’ve never felt it like that before. That’s the most I’ve felt--babe.” Nolan rolls over, kissing Travis on the shoulder, his ear. “Babe, c’mon. Say it.”

Travis shakes his head, embarrassed, hunching under the comforter. “You fucking say it, prairie boy.”

Nolan laughs, but it’s like a giggle. If a toddler had the vocal chords of a grown man. Nolan rolls on top of him, crushing him under deadweight. Travis struggles and finally twists over onto his back with Nolan hovering over him on his forearms, long hair grazing Travis’s cheeks. 

Face bright pink and so pretty. Nothing more beautiful has come out of Manitoba, ever. 

Usually Nolan would look away. Prolonged eye contact typically makes him squirm. But Travis watches the delicate flickering of those blue, blue irises as they bore into him. “I love you.” 

No _likes,_ no _ums,_ no hesitation. Where it takes Travis a fluttering of syllables and breath, Nolan says it so plainly there’s not a single doubt in Travis’s mind that he means it. _ “Holy fuck.” _

“Yeah.”

“Bro. I mean, babe. Are we really doing this?”

“We have been doing it. You just didn’t notice.” Nolan smiles, hair slipping from behind his ear. 

Travis tucks it back. Something he’s thought about so many times before. “Well, alright then.”

Nolan lowers, mouth brushing against Travis’s cheek. His forehead knocks into Travis’s and he whispers, “Head’s up, dude.” 

That first day of camp, he remembers thinking _ oh shit, he’s tall _ and then, _ oh shit pretty _ before Nolan opened his mouth and said the words Travis had waited to hear his whole life, except with such bite it nearly pushed him off balance. And now they’re here, bond humming with so much love that Travis feels lightheaded with it. 

Nolan’s lips rest lightly on his, noses bumping together and Travis smiles into the hairsbreadth between them. “Well, you were pretty hard to miss, so.”


End file.
